Toyota 2010 Recall – Breaking News

WASHINGTON – Akio Toyoda’s moment in the national spotlight may be over, but Washington is just getting started.

A day after the president of Toyota Motor Corp. apologized to Congress and millions of his customers over the automaker’s handling of sudden acceleration problems, lawmakers said Thursday that they were planning further hearings scrutinizing both Toyota and the federal agency that oversees it.

Toyota officials muddied the water further this week as lawmakers and regulators sought answers about hundreds of the automaker’s still-unresolved unintended acceleration reports, say members of Congress.

At least 34 people have died in accidents involving Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles that allegedly accelerated out of control in the past decade, federal safety regulators said Monday, reflecting a sharp jump in the number of motorist complaints being filed in the three weeks since the automaker announced its latest recalls.

The Department of Transportation has opened an inquiry into whether Toyota Motor Corp. conducted three of its recent recalls in a timely manner.

The agency’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked Toyota to provide documents showing "when and how it learned of the defects" that have resulted in the recall of 6 million of the automaker’s vehicles in the U.S. because of varied acceleration and braking issues. About 2 million of the vehicles have been caught up in two of the recalls.

Federal safety regulators are asking Toyota to show how quickly it initiated three recalls after learning of the underlying safety risk, with the leverage of a $16.4 million fine if they determine Toyota was too slow.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding Toyota documents that will show when and how it discovered the defects that led to three recalls of about 6 million vehicles in the U.S. Federal law requires all auto manufacturers to notify NHTSA within five days of determining that a safety defect exists and promptly conduct a recall.

Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) — Toyota Motor Corp., Japan’s biggest automaker, is cutting scheduled production at two U.S. factories to avoid a buildup of unsold vehicles as the company works to resolve quality concerns spurred by recalls.

The Georgetown, Kentucky, plant, Toyota’s largest in North America, won’t produce models including Camry and Avalon cars on Feb. 26 and possibly three days in March, Mike Goss, a company spokesman, said today. The San Antonio plant that makes Tundra pickups will be idled March 15-19 and April 12-16, he said.

The safety problems that have engulfed Toyota Motor Corp. are focusing renewed attention on one of the most controversial components in an automobile: the black box.

The box, officially called an "event data recorder," is a small, square, virtually indestructible container akin to those found on commercial airplanes. Tucked inside the dash or under the front seats of most newer vehicles, it records vehicle and engine speeds as well as brake, accelerator and throttle positions and other data that can help determine the causes of accidents.